Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1887-06-25
ALEX CAMBRIA.
SATURDAY EVENING, JUNE 20.

AMONG THE most important aSeho'e9 liz
building up city are its schools. we lear
our people do not appreciate this as fully as
thew should, and it may not be amiss TO say
q few words to them on the subject. When
Deople are looking for placs of residence,
nowadays, they are apt to enquire carefully
into its educational facilities. 1t is right
that thew should. Their children are their
most precious possessions and need more OF
their care than anything else, and no man
who has that care for his own household,
the want Of which the Apostle tells US makes
him worse than an in6del, will live unless
obliged bv the direst necessity in any place
where he cannot bring them up properly.
How do we stand in this regard? There IS,
in every place, we suppose-in Alexandra
there certainly is.-a class of people who
imagine that they can get nothing good at
home these 90 of to Washington to buy
their supplies, though it can often DO dem
onstrated that they spend more money
in doing so, and they decry our own
schools, public and private, and send
their children there to get what
they could get better and cheaper at home
It ia q curious fact that while in one, at
least, of the schools there are as many pu'
nils from Washington as from Alexandria,
young people pass that school daily on their
way to the former city to attend schools
there at much greater expense. The Wash
ington boys are sent here, presumably, to
keen them away from the bad company and
evil influences incident to the capital OF a
great nation; ours are voluntarily placed
under those influences without government
except during school hours. AS to our
public schools, they do not keep up sys-
tematic game Of brag, as do those of some
other cities, nor is our system crowned by
So called high school, made up of boys and
girls who could do much better in a lower
grade, but are put up higher to create
reason for there being a high school. Yet
our boys and girls boldly enter the lists with
those OF the high schools of Kentucky and
the best private schools in that State
and our Own, and win, in the
University local examinations-that fair
aud impartial test Of merit-honors as
great ss those more pretontious institutions.
We do not propose to institute comparisons,
hut the fac. remains that Alexandria, the
only city of the first class in Virginia, we
believe, without high school. is the only
one which has entered we will not say
dared TO enter-her sons and daughters IN
competition before the competent and i'm
partial tribunal of the University of Vlr-
GINA Yet some of our people say" Oh if
we had schools like such and such city,"
when they have really better ones. Then,
too, "a to our academies, male aud female ::
they draw pupils from all parts of the conn-
try, one of them having had within two
wears past students from at least seventeen
different States and Territories; yet our peo-
ple seem not TO be alive to the fact that they
are adding largely TO the prosperity OF our
city, not only by bringing in money from
abroad, but by making for us friends in all
sections, men who, in future years, will
trade with lis and advance our interests.
Stanton has been made by her schools; SO
have many other places; why not Alexand-
ria? Our proximity to Washington gives
us great advantages in obtaining patronage
for schools, and we should improve it. Let
us show that we have confidence in our
selves and others will have confidence in
IL